Searcher of the Dead Page 13

  Her sister sat by the hall windows, staring at the garden beyond through the leaded panes. How miserable she looked, her hair untidy beneath her coif, her gown missing the farthingale required to keep its proper shape and dragging upon the floor.

  She had heard Bess enter but did not look over. “I pray that each day will bring me more strength, Elizabeth, but each morn comes with all the same weariness of the last.”

  Bess brought over a stool to sit beside her. The view would not improve her sister’s spirits. The drizzle had become rain, snaking down the glass, distorting the sunless world outside.

  “I wish I could claim the loss shall become less of a burden, Dorothie.” Martin’s death had carved free a portion of her heart that would never grow back or be repaired, no matter how she prayed otherwise. “However, over time you may learn to bear the weight more easily.”

  Dorothie trembled as though cold. Bess needed to ask Lucy to bring a hand warmer for her mistress. If the churchwarden’s men had not forbidden the girl from touching it.

  “The churchwarden’s men only add to my distress. I am convinced those thieves have pocketed some of Fulke’s coins,” said Dorothie. “They have also stolen items of mine. Mean they to reward their wives with bits of finery? At this moment, a pair of them pick through my chests in my chamber. Which another two have already done. Think they that my boxes have secret compartments hiding jewels?”

  As if in response, Bess heard an object thud to the floor above their heads.

  “It shall all be restored to you soon enough. Once the constable has resolved this matter, and the true cause of Fulke’s death is known to one and all.”

  “How it contents me that you have faith in his abilities to do so,” she said scornfully. She glanced toward the entrance to the hall. “Did you not bring Margery with you? Does she not care to visit me?”

  “I asked her to braid a new girdle for me, to calm her mind. I thought you did not want her here, with strange men in the house.”

  “Nevertheless …”

  “Dorothie, why did you not tell me that there were others besides Arthur Stamford whom Fulke had quarreled with of late?”

  “What do I care about any others?” She glared at Bess. “You vex me, you do.”

  “Why would Fulke not sell Sir Walter his land?”

  “You have come to ask about that?” Dorothie asked. “Of what import is their dispute now? Your message was that the cottager’s boy had Fulke’s hat. He is involved in my husband’s death. The constable must arrest him, but Roland tells me it has not happened. Why can this not be ended?”

  “The constable believes the boy did not act alone and means to use him to find any others involved.” Bess clasped her sister’s hands to warm them. “Why would Fulke not sell Sir Walter his land, Dorothie?”

  “He offered an insulting price.”

  “And Sir Walter would not raise it when Fulke refused?”

  “He did, but by then Fulke would have none of it,” said Dorothie. “They are both stubborn men, you know. Easily angered. I fretted that Fulke would bring trouble upon himself by going to Devizes. My dream …” She sighed. “And so he did bring trouble upon himself.”

  “If the coroner is not convinced to overturn his ruling, shall you sell the land to Sir Walter?”

  Dorothie scowled. “I will not hear such irksome talk. Begone, Elizabeth. Leave me in peace.”

  Bess pressed a kiss upon her sister’s head and went in search of Lucy. She found the girl seated in the corner of the kitchen, crying into her apron.

  When she heard Bess’s footfalls upon the flags, she sat bolt upright and scrubbed at her eyes. “Roland, if you’ve come to ask again how I am, I shall scream!”

  “Lucy,” said Bess, to make her identity known.

  She peeked over the edge of the apron. “Oh, ’tis you, Mistress Ellyott.” She jumped to her feet. “My apologies. I did not hear you at the door.”

  “It was unlocked. Do not fret. I understand,” she said. “I came to tell you that your mistress requires a hand warmer. She is chilled, sitting by that window.”

  “I would bring her one, if I could but find it. The churchwarden and his men have moved everything, and I know not where to find my brass kitchen pan let alone the mistress’s hand warmer.” She moaned. “Oh, Mistress, where am I to go after we are forced from this house?”

  Bess had no answer. Lucy would not find a position in this town; so long as Fulke’s death was ruled a suicide, a shadow was cast upon all those closest to him, including his servants.

  “Might I come work for you?” she asked, her tone pleading.

  “We already have Joan and Humphrey at my brother’s house, Lucy. My sister and Mistress Margery shall likely be living with us, but I am not free to offer you a place.”

  Shoulders sagging, Lucy crushed her holland apron in her fists.

  Bess regarded the girl. “Lucy, what do you recall of the days before your master died? Had he any visitors who may have angered him?”

  “You mean who upset him so he …” She chewed her lower lip. “Do you believe what they say, Mistress? That the uneasy souls of those who’ve killed themselves walk the earth at night?”

  Bess did not, but others did, and Fulke had been staked to the ground as a result of the old superstition. “Had there been visitors?”

  “Bennett Langham had come.”

  Bess had hoped not to hear his name. “When?”

  “I do not recall the exact day, Mistress, but he was fiercely angry, he was. About his father’s death in that prison.” She blushed at the admission she had overheard their fight. “I could hear him shouting all the way in the kitchen.”

  “Did it come to blows?”

  “No. Master Langham stalked off,” said Lucy. “But the master had some tart words about the fellow after.”

  “Anyone else? A stranger perhaps?” Bess asked. “Or mayhap Sir Walter Howe or Arthur Stamford? Did either of them visit Master Crofton of late?”

  “Is Master Stamford the draper who has a shop on the market square? The tall one?” Bess nodded, and she continued. “Well, he came the day Master Crofton died, wanting to be admitted to the master’s warehouse where he stores the wool.”

  Bess knew of the building, which stood at the far end of the yard beyond the garden.

  “I had heard, though, that Master Stamford was aware your master was bound for Devizes that day,” said Bess. “Why might he have come here looking for Master Crofton?”

  “Oh, he knew well enough, madam. ’Twas why he was here, for Master Crofton would never let Master Stamford see the warehouse after their great argument out in the yard a few days earlier! What a fight that was. After, the master told me to never let Master Stamford into the house again,” she said. “I tried to turn Master Stamford away, but he’d not listen. He was to prove that the master’s wool was inferior—that was what he said, ‘inferior,’ spitting the word out like he’d taken a bite of moldy cheese. He asked for Roland, who has the second key to the padlock upon the warehouse door, but I said he was busy. And he was. He was in the yard nearly all morning and into the afternoon mending the thatch on the calf-cote, for Master Crofton was to go to the fair next week and buy us a calf.”

  “At what time of day was Master Stamford here?” asked Bess, recalling that Goodwife Anwicke had seen Fulke alive during the afternoon.

  Lucy pinched her brows together as she tried to remember. “Around midday, I think. Right after I had served the mistress dinner and she had gone to visit the vicar’s wife,” she replied. “’Tis fortunate for him the mistress was away, else he’d have suffered a scolding.”

  “Did Roland let him into the warehouse to show him the wool?”

  “Oh, no. And Master Stamford made terrible threats, wishing harm to the master. He claimed he had to see the wool before some meeting Master Crofton had set with him for the next day, but Roland would not budge. So Master Stamford stomped off. I had a bit of a laugh about him not getting his way
.” She sobered. “But then the master did not return from his travels, and Mistress Crofton got so scared. It helped not that Mistress Margery was away at Master Crofton’s sister’s. The mistress will accept no comfort from me.”

  Dorothie had been scared for good reason, it turned out. And Bess had been so dismissive of her sister’s fears. Fears that remained relevant.

  For a killer had yet to be found.

  CHAPTER 12

  Bess prodded the kindling in the base of the low brick oven in her still room, then retrieved the pan that would hold the ingredients to be distilled.

  Arthur Stamford. Sir Walter Howe. The Langhams. A vagrant.

  If she stirred those names together into the pan, which one would condense out and form the answer she sought to the question of who had murdered Fulke?

  Would that it could be so simple. The problem was that Fulke had too many enemies. Certes, those who had gathered upon the road to watch his body being cut down from the tree had not mourned his passing. Perhaps she should stand outside the door of church that Sunday and ask all who exited to declare their love or their hatred for him.

  Most amusing, Bess.

  She collected the bottles and paper envelopes of her ingredients: chamomile and dried gillyflowers, pepper grains and the powder of sage and rue. Spikenard, nutmeg, and fennel seed. Thinking she heard her niece’s voice in the kitchen, Bess paused. She hoped Margery was coming to join her. But the voice belonged to Joan, who took up humming, as was her wont, and Margery did not appear.

  With a sigh, Bess weighed each ingredient upon the brass pans of her scale, not more than a dram each. Such a tiny amount but such a significant impact when all were brought together as a whole.

  Not unlike the minor hurts and annoyances that occurred between people and which built until the sum total was more than each part, becoming an explosive mixture.

  Joan entered with a lantern, for the room grew dark.

  “I thought I heard Margery’s voice,” said Bess. “But it was you humming.”

  “Your niece has gone to the church, Mistress. She said she wishes to pray, so unhappy is she.”

  “Did she, now.” Bess glanced out the room’s narrow unglazed window to the damp scene beyond. “’Tis not like her. Especially in such weather.”

  “These are not ordinary times. She is affrighted.”

  “As are we all.”

  Joan knitted her brows. “Think you we shall have another visit by whatever it was that alarmed Quail last night, Mistress?”

  “I pray not, but tell Humphrey to ensure that all the exterior doors and gates are securely bolted.”

  “You can be certain I shall.”

  Quail, perhaps hearing his name, came in search of human companions, his nails tapping across the flags. He settled nearby. Joan ruffled the dog’s ears.

  “Marcye at the Cross Keys stopped me in the square this morning,” she said, fetching a pot of red wine that Bess had prepared the day before.

  “Oh?”

  “She told me Master Crofton confronted Master Langham as he sat drinking in the tavern a few days ago. He demanded to know if the Langhams were hiding another Jesuit.”

  Jesu. Worse news and worse. “Lucy has told me Bennett shouted at Fulke because of his father’s death. Should the constable learn of these fights, Bennett will surely be arrested, if any are,” said Bess, tipping the mixture of herbs and spices into the wine.

  “Will not the constable arrest the Anwicke boy?” asked Joan. “He ought, for he is a troublesome lad, that one. He vexes the girls on market day when he’s come into town. It is said he steals apples and the like as well.”

  “You know Rodge Anwicke?”

  “A lad like that who is soon to be a full-grown man? Aye, Mistress, every unmarried woman in this town knows to keep a weather eye on such as him.”

  “The constable does not arrest Rodge because he wishes to use the boy as a lure.” Turning back to the still, Bess spread the burning kindling to quiet the flames. She set the deep pan atop the fire, its three long feet holding it well above the embers, and poured into it the wine infused with herbs and spices. “In hopes of drawing out the man who may have paid him to assist in the crime. If that was Rodge’s role.”

  “It sounds a dangerous game.”

  “Aye, and likely futile.” Traps had not caught those who had schemed with Laurence.

  Joan placed the cone-shaped alembic atop the still, and Bess pressed a paste made from rye around the joint to seal it.

  Finished, she wiped her fingers upon a scrap of cloth lying on her worktable. She looked over at her servant. “How did all this come to pass, Joan? Here we are once more, a murderer in our midst.”

  An unknown one this time.

  Joan had no comforting response. “Mayhap I should have accompanied Mistress Margery to church to pray for our protection.”

  She picked up the used plate of paste and retreated to the kitchen.

  Bess settled upon a stool. The aqua vitae dripped into the glass flask she had set beneath the downturned spout of the alembic, the sight as bewitching as watching sand flow through the neck of an hourglass. However, the gentle crackle of the burning wood, the steady drip of the water had not their usual power to calm her. What, though, was there to be calm about?

  The flow of water slowed, then halted. Selecting two of her ceramic jars, Bess carefully poured out the aqua vitae.

  “So, this is where you spend your time. When not creeping about at night.”

  His voice startled her. As intent as she had been upon her task, she’d not heard footsteps in the service rooms’ lobby.

  Quail, tail wagging, jumped up to greet him.

  “When I am not needed to tend to my patients, Constable Harwoode, this is where I can be found.” She paused to glance over her shoulder, the lantern lighting the somber look upon his face as he observed her actions.

  Blushing beneath his scrutiny, she almost spilled aqua vitae onto the plank that served as her worktable. “I am unhappy with you, Constable. I have learned of a dispute between your cousin Sir Walter and Fulke. A most serious dispute that you did not inform me of.” She would not tell him about the argument with Bennett that Lucy had overheard.

  “I learned of it only recently myself,” he said. “But Wat has sworn he had no wish to harm your brother-in-law.”

  “Does his vow mean he has come to believe that Fulke was murdered?”

  “Even if he did believe so, Wat’s opinion would not change the fact that I must convince the coroner. And he will not be convinced until I name the murderer.”

  “So we get nowhere,” she said crossly, forcing wooden bungs into the jars. “And I do not understand why you are here.”

  Her crossness made a muscle in his left cheek twitch. “I encountered one of my cousin’s servants upon the road. Wat’s wife is in need of physic,” he said. “I came seeking a recommendation from you for a midwife.”

  “Lady Howe must have the services of one.”

  “Wat blames the woman for the loss of his wife’s other infants,” he said. “I told my cousin’s servant I’d ask if you know of a competent one. But if you would rather not help—”

  “I can attend Lady Howe.”

  His brows rose.

  “Do not look so, Constable Harwoode. I have midwifery skills and have tended to other women with child. I have even delivered babies before. Successfully,” she added, as much to reassure herself as him.

  “Are you certain?” he asked. “As you said, your brother-in-law and my cousin were not exactly on good terms.”

  The iron poker resting against the wall clanged as Bess picked it up. “Their relationship does not dissuade me from wanting to help Lady Howe. She would be a patient, and I would be concerned only with her health.”

  Bess jabbed at the embers within the base of the still, spreading the unburned wood. This opportunity to meet Sir Walter Howe, the man whom Fulke had refused to sell land to, had come as though a gift from heaven. A
gift she would not pass by.

  “My thanks, then,” he said.

  “There is no need for thanks.” Stripping off her apron, she looked at the constable. “Let us go to her.”

  * * *

  “A tiny amount of blood. There has been no pain, however,” said Cecily Lady Howe. The ease with which she relayed the details Bess required revealed that she’d often had to speak of miscarriage.

  Poor creature.

  Upon their arrival at the house, Kit Harwoode had handed Bess off to a servant. The girl had guided her up the staircase and through a series of lavish rooms to the bedchamber where Lady Howe rested.

  “What you describe tells me that you need not fear, Lady Howe.” Bess soaked a scrap of linen in the cool mixture of water and muscatel she had poured into a tin bowl. “So long as there is no pain, you should recover with rest.”

  “No pain. So far,” she said, her face taut with fear despite Bess’s reassurance.

  Careful to prevent any drips falling upon the bedding, she laid the soaked linen across the young woman’s bared navel and smiled reassuringly. The cool to draw the heat. The calm to temper the passion.

  She returned Bess’s smile. With eyes as warm as polished walnut wood, a pert nose, and fine-boned face, she was astonishingly lovely. And so very young, much younger than her husband, who Bess had once heard—from Robert, she thought—was more than forty years of age. Lady Howe had to be around Joan’s age, just past twenty. That Sir Walter had married a woman many years his junior was not out of the ordinary, but Bess had expected—irrationally, she now saw—that he would have chosen someone older. A widow, perchance, with experience of the world, and who’d be best equipped to help him manage his estate and the duties of the town. Lady Howe, were she not sweating upon the plush feather mattresses of her bed, looked more suited to giggling over her needlework or weaving daisy chains to adorn her lush, near-black hair.

  And her, had she married him because he came with a house bedecked with finery most could only imagine? Robert lived comfortably, with beautiful furnishings and servants. The Howes lived extravagantly. Bess suspected that if she searched their buttery, she would find only the best silver and clearest glass. Lady Howe’s tester was hung with fringed velvet curtains, the bed linens of the finest weave, and set with more pillows and bolsters and arras cloths than were contained within all the chambers of Robert’s house. The air was scented with perfume, and in a neighboring room, a talented servant strummed a lute to soothe his mistress.